Is Adam Sandler washed up?
He certainly was a different comedian in 1995 when I discovered his raunchy CD "They're All Gonna Laugh At You," not that it's necessarily a bad thing to be less raunchy.
Certainly he has matured (well, a little), branching out into serious roles like "Funny People," "Reign Over Me," and "Punch-Drunk Love" (his best performance to date), but for a comic whose entire act was predicated on the fact that he was perpetually immature, is a grown-up Sandler something we want to see?
"Grown Ups" answers that question, and the answer is eh, I guess so.
The film's framework is a solid enough framework for Sandler in that it's a premise that allows our collective manchildren the opportunity to misbehave while teaching their own kids not to be that way. Now Sandler and his co-stars have to whisper their swear words and insults, so they can still hear their children doing the same thing from the other room.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Our story is thus: a group of childhood friends are reunited when their childhood basketball coach passes away. Lenny (Sandler) is a successful Hollywood agent with a hot wife (Salma Hayek Pinault) who is a clothing designer; Kurt (Chris Rock) is a househusband who gets his jollies watching Rachael Ray and has a live-in-mother-in-law (Ebony Jo-Ann); Rob (Rob Schneider) has been divorced a couple of times but is currently wedded to a women twice (perhaps thrice) his age (Gloria Van Patten); Eric (James) is a successful businessman with a hot wife (Maria Bello); and Marcus (David Spade) is a tailchasing confirmed bachelor.
Their coach's will dictates his ashes be spread across an island they frequented in their youth, so the five make it a weekend, renting the house they always stayed in and recaptured their youth, their broods in tow. Hilarity ensues...for the most part.
The biggest thing I noticed about this motley crue of 90s legends is that their successors have passed them by. Much of the comedy is situational (the guys are harassed by their old rivals! One of the wives breastfeeds their...48-month-old! One has uncomfortably attractive daughters!), giving our heroes the chance to crack wise, only they're often not all that wise.
I was instantly reminded of the current trend in comedies, where we see outtakes of the comedians spouting line after line finding the funniest joke. It seems like Sandler and the gang just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, then moves on. Certainly a more economical filmmaking style, but hardly workmanlike comedy.
But it's time to face facts: Rob Schneider is not funny, and he has never been funny. Ditto for Spade. Sandler, James and Rock can bring it, but they're playing it safe here. Fat jokes and fart gags abound, and that's fine, but over the course of 90 minutes the laugh-to-not ratio is pretty poor.
That's not to say there aren't any laughs, but the boys are relying on the nostalgia of seeing them all together, giving each other a hard time, and it doesn't always work.
One thing I noticed that I really enjoyed: in a film like this, women are routinely portrayed as shrews and killjoys, only out to keep the guys from having a good time. Here the women are flawed (Bello breastfeeds her 4-year-old; Hayek wants to take Sandler and the fam to Milan early; Van Patten is old), but they're played beyond stereotypes and given fully-fleshed characters as much as women can be in these kinds of tales. All are given motivations and show soft sides for their husbands' antics. You can tell why they fell in love with their men, and vice versa.
"Grown Ups" isn't a terrible comedy; in many ways for me it's a warm reunion with old friends (and it would be easy to picture, had things turned out differently, Chris Farley playing James' character). It's not a classic, but it's mostly a harmless good time, forgettable perhaps, but you'll chuckle nonetheless.